The reasonable religious

I value rationality and reasonableness over sentimentality and reactionary communication. Most people that I have found to be reasonable and rational have been non-religious or people with a christian background. But I fear falling into the trap of thinking that all Muslims are unreasonable by virtue of being Muslim. I fear that Muslims may view me as disloyal for favoring the western religion over Islam.

However, I must argue that it is true that you can be a highly reasonable Christian, because Christianity goes back deeper into antiquity than Islam, and therefore allows for flexible interpretation. There have been millenia of Christian scholars who have tried to reconcile Christianity with the secular philosophical tradition, thus allowing for radical changes in how individuals relate to god and the bible. This hasn't happened in the Quran, and it cannot happen in the Quran because by definition, a Muslim believes that it is the direct word of God. A rational Christian on the other hand, does not believe that the bible is the direct word of god. There are few who do, but they realize full well that there are multiple authors who were inspired to write the various books in the bible crossing a vast expanse of time. The Muslim on the other hand has to believe that the Quran was revealed word for word in Muhammad's lifetime. This makes Islam much more rigid, and leaves little room for flexible interpretation of its origins, content, and intent.